What happens to the landscape, to community, and to the population when vacated big box stores are turned into community centers, churches, schools, and libraries? America is becoming a container landscape of big boxes connected by highways. When a big box store upsizes to an even bigger box “supercenter” down the road, it leaves behind more than the vacant shell of a retail operation; i…
Unavailable as a collection until now, these essays document both the intellectual journey of one of the world's leading architects and a critical period in the evolution of architectural thought. Born in Tokyo, educated in Japan and the United States, and principal of an internationally acclaimed architectural practice, celebrated architect Fumihiko Maki brings to his writings on architectu…
How the BBC shaped popular perceptions of architecture and placed them at the heart of debates over participatory democracy. In the years between the world wars, millions of people heard the world through a box on the dresser. In Britain, radio listeners relied on the British Broadcasting Corporation for information on everything from interior decoration to Hitler's rise to power. One subjec…
Cambridge, Massachusetts is a rich mixture of closely mingled examples of architectural periods; 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century, with the 21st century already near the drawing board and before the planning board. Yet implicit in the city is a continuity overruling what might be chaos. The Cambridge Historical Commission was established not to piously preserve a static past, but to make mani…
What is uniquely American about American design? This first history of American products and the philosophy behind their design, use, and manufacture points to the process - the interaction between industrial technology and culture - that gave form to an American "ethic" in material products and helped shape the life style of its citizens.Pulos discusses the influences and fashions as well as t…